


A Closer Look

by Aiffe



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 1: Storm Front, Feminist reclaiming, Gen, Soulgaze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 19:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aiffe/pseuds/Aiffe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slight canon divergence--Harry doesn't avert his gaze from Linda Randall. The soulgaze that could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Closer Look

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve just started reading The Dresden Files, and rather than catch up on all 14 books, and have forgotten the stuff in the beginning by that point, I’m ficcing as I go. This is written only having read the first book, Storm Front.
> 
> First two sentences are from canon, the rest obviously diverges.

“Why,” I asked her, the words slip­ping out be­fore I thought about them. “Why the slut act?”

She looked up at me again, and smirked. I saw the sub­tle shift­ing in her, mag­ni­fy­ing that sort of an­imal ap­peal she had, once more, as she had been do­ing when I first ap­proached her—but it didn’t hide the self-loathing in her eyes. She didn’t know any better than to look me in the eye, but I had her now. Linda Randall was going to show me something true, whether she knew it yet or not.

The first thing I knew about her was that she was lonely. Not lonely as in alone. There were people around her—smiling parents, lovers, a sea of faces. She’d had a pretty decent life, on the whole of it. But she was alone in that sea, set apart. Their love rolled off her like water off a duck’s feathers.

I knew in that moment, bone-deep, that the reason she felt so lonely was because not one of those people I’d seen around her ever _saw_ her. They saw a placeholder, a woman named Linda Randall, a daughter, a lover, a whore. They projected their own expectations onto her, their own wants and needs, each one making her somehow less real in the process, and there was a quiet despair at that, each subsequent lie burying her treasure of the truth deeper, driving her to shout louder only to have her voice distorted by their ears. No one saw far enough into her to grasp that one simple fact of her existence—that she was lonely. She wanted someone to recognize her for her soul. That very soul that lay open under my eyes, that I felt the taste and texture of—things hard to put into words, but I’d have known them again anywhere.

I’d been hoping for different answers. For a clue on Jennifer Stanton, primarily, but maybe just answers on _her_. Maybe I thought you had to be broken in some way to sell yourself like that. But if that was all it took, I’d have been peddling ass on the streets long ago. I’d mistaken her look of despair for one of self-loathing, but it wasn’t despair at herself, it was despair at the distance I’d put between my eyes and her human heart. At my unwillingness to see, and this mirage of her I’d been addressing instead of the real thing. I saw myself in an endless line of eyes, casting my gaze on her as a weapon, erasing her.

Except I’d finally done it, hadn’t I? I’d seen the truth no one else could. I might not have gotten the answers I went looking for, but she would have to tell me everything now. After all, who else could she tell?

Linda broke the gaze suddenly, not just unfocusing but turning away from me in disgust. I tried to recapture her eyes, but it wouldn’t have done any good anyway, and I knew it. She’d seen everything she could see, and clearly more than she’d wanted to see.

In that terrible moment, we understood each other. And I felt her grief that of all the people to finally see her, it had to be _me_.

Linda glanced back over her shoulder, toward an approaching couple. “You should go, Mr. Dresden,” she said. There was no coyness left in her voice. We had no more secrets from each other.

At that point, all I wanted to do was run out of there and forget this whole encounter ever happened, but I did come here for a reason. I pulled one of my business cards out of my pocket, and held it out to her. Not that I thought she’d call me, but it couldn’t hurt, anyway.

Linda took it, and met my eyes for one last time. The disgust had faded there, and I didn’t know better, I’d have thought her look was pitying. That’s a new one, I thought. I think I like it better when they faint.


End file.
